The present invention relates to disposable pull-on garments. Examples of such disposable pull-on garments include disposable underwear, disposable pull-on diapers and training pants, and disposable panties for menstrual use. More specifically, the present invention relates to disposable pull-on garments which have improved fitness to body.
Infants and other incontinent individuals wear disposable garments such as diapers to receive and contain urine and other body exudates. Disposable pull-on garments having fixed sides, which are also called xe2x80x9cpant typexe2x80x9d garments, have become popular for use on children able to walk and often who are toilet training. These pull-on garments have side panels with edges that are seamed together to form two leg openings and a waist opening. In order to contain body exudates as well as fit a wide variety of body shapes and sizes, these pull-on garments need to fit snugly about the waist and legs of the wearer without drooping, sagging or sliding down from its position on the torso. Examples of these pull-on garments are disclosed, for example, in U.S. Pat. No. 5,171,239 issued to Igaue et al. on Dec. 15, 1992, U.S. Pat. No. 4,610,681 issued to Strohbeen et al. on Sep. 9, 1986; U.S. Pat. No. 4,940,464 issued to Van Gompel et al. on Jul. 10, 1990; U.S. Pat. No. 5,246,433 to issued Hasse et al. on Sep. 21, 1993; U.S. Pat. No. 5,569,234 issued to Buell et al. on Oct. 29, 1996; and WO 96/31176 (Ashton) published on Oct. 10, 1996.
To prevent pull-on garments from drooping, sagging or sliding down from the torso of wearer, it is believed that proper forces should be generated at the waist and side panel areas of pull-on garments and applied to the torso of wearer. For example, U.S. Pat. No. 5,415,649 issued to Watanabe et al. on May 16, 1995, EP0761193A2 (Yamamoto et al.) and EP0761194A2 (Yamamoto et al.) both published on Mar. 12, 1997 disclose the use of a plurality of elastic members which have different expanding stresses to provide controlled fitness forces to body. Since these pull-on garments need to use and handle the plurality of elastic members, their manufacturing processes tend to become complicated to handle the elastic members.
Another example is EP 0547497B1 (Van Gompel et al.) published on Mar. 26, 1997. This publication discloses a disposable training pant using triangularly-shaped stretchable side members which have stretch gradient side panels to provide an improved fitness. Since this pull-on garment employs triangularly-shaped stretchable side members, the manufacturing process also tends to become complicated to handle the members.
Thus, none of the existing art provides all of the advantages and benefits of the present invention.
The present invention is directed to a disposable pull-on garment having a longitudinal center line, a front region, a back region and a crotch region between the front region and the back region. The disposable pull-on garment includes a chassis provided in the front, back and crotch regions. The chassis has edge lines in the front and back regions and includes a liquid pervious topsheet, a liquid impervious backsheet associated with the topsheet, and an absorbent core disposed between the topsheet and the backsheet. The disposable pull-on garment further includes at least one pair of extensible ear panels extending laterally outward from the chassis in the front or back region. Each of the ear panels has an outermost edge line.
In one aspect of the present invention, at least one of the outermost edge lines has a nonuniform lateral distance from the longitudinal center line in the uncontracted state of the garment. The ear panels are joined to the chassis along the corresponding edge lines to form two leg openings and a waist opening.
In another aspect of the present invention, each of the ear panels is joined to the chassis along the corresponding edge lines to form a seaming line, thereby forming two leg openings and a waist opening. At least one of the seaming lines has a nonuniform lateral distance from the longitudinal center line in the uncontracted state of the garment.
These and other features, aspects, and advantages of the present invention will become evident to those skilled in the art from reading of the present disclosure.